Joseph Overton worked at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, a Michigan-based conservative think tank before his untimely death in 2003. Overton observed that there is a narrow range of political ideas that are broadly accepted by the public as normal discourse including ideas they disagree with. Beyond that range of ideas politicians and others get labeled extremist which makes it harder to maneuver as most of the public has prejudged such people. This became known as the Overton Window.
Overton proposed that this window moves over time—women’s suffrage, the end of prohibition, and gay marriage all suggest dramatic changes are possible. But the forces that wish to limit public discourse to a narrow range are so powerful that the seeming changes in the Overton window on certain subjects can often obscure a stubborn intransigence.
Climate change went from an obscure scientific phenomenon to being recognized as a central threat to civilization. Despite a broad scientific consensus and worldwide treaties such as the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Accord, little actual progress has been made in addressing climate change. It is moving faster than ever.
In this context, two recent contrasting stories on climate change show how wide the Overton Window can appear to be without actually challenging anything fundamental in the current system.
The first story is about the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), a part of the U.S. Department of Treasury and an important bank regulator. The OCC has dropped its guidance for financial institutions on climate-related risks. That is consistent with the policies of the Trump Administration which regards climate change as a hoax. However, the big financial institutions regulated by the OCC are certain to have their own climate consultants who are helping those institutions model their risks. Those risks are being weighed whether the U.S. government agencies weigh them or not. But the government will no longer have its own independent assessment to compare to those produced by other organizations.
On the other end of the Overton Window is a “hair-on-fire” warning from a board member of one of the largest insurance companies in the world. The board member and former CEO of Allianz Investment Management, Günther Thallinger, minces no words. On its current trajectory climate change will destroy the insurance industry and “capitalism as we know it ceases to be viable.” Since almost nothing will be insurable—premiums will soar far beyond what companies and individuals can pay—one important pillar for capital markets, the insurability of risks, will largely disappear.
Despite Thallinger’s dire prognosis, he includes in his analysis a way out: “The good news is we already have the technologies to switch from fossil combustion to zero-emission energy. The only thing missing is speed and scale. This is about saving the conditions under which markets, finance, and civilisation itself can continue to operate.”
This is what has truly defined the seeming dire predictions from this end of the Overton Window on climate change. There is always a way out that will allow business-as-usual to continue, if only we would take it. The broadening out of media into social media and independent news and commentary sites since Overton’s death has allowed more extreme views to be heard that suggest a wholesale reorganization and downsizing of human society is coming whether we plan for it or not and the damage can only be mitigated if we recognize that continuous economic growth is not compatible with healthy planetary systems that support human life. But such views have clearly not captured the public mind or the political class.
The Overton Window is, of course, mostly concerned with political discourse. It is difficult to find any sizable group of politicians in any country who would embrace the idea that world consumption must go down dramatically over time in order prevent the destruction of global society by climate change. Such politicians do embrace the idea that climate change can be successfully addressed even as economic growth continues apace. That happy outcome, however, seems less and less likely with every passing day.
I hate to acknowledge the truth in this essay. My own efforts give no results that will make any difference to how the public feels. My only consolation is that I have many visitors to our farm who are very interested in the aspects of farming in a way that is fairly self sufficient. Sadly nobody wants to talk about the soil health or climate changes we are facing on the farm and how that will affect our lives. Most want their air conditioned comforts, cars, computers, with lots of travel by air.
Very hard to feel I am doing anything to help public opinion be aware of the many issues facing us today.
Amen brother.
The elephant in the room is dying, just as real elephants struggle to maintain existence. Capitalism, as it is deceptively moniker-ed, is just the parasitism of human mental weaknesses. In ecology, we often use the term 'opportunism' to describe the behaviors/movements of animals and plants as they 'seem' to jockey for positions that are favorable for their existence, into perpetuity. Well, duh? This is just raw logic. But it is not a green light for entropy on steroids.
The bio-physical-chemical balances within animal and plant species, sans the recent and massive toxicities perpetrated by man, have for many millions of years been assured and genetically deepened by interactions across species. Opportunism becomes reliance on diversity, reliance becomes resilience to entropy gone into chaos. The range and staggering scope of DNA/RNA/protein intelligence grows and evolves as change occurs – evolution for its own pragmatic sake.
The Overton dichotomy is essentially a translation of biotic Esperanza into human jabberwockey. Paranoia and fear drive capitalism, with a healthy dose of addictive adrenal hormones thrown in to dazzle the human brain appetite for perversions and sadistic satisfactions. As another article in print describes, the latest of many, the long-time human addiction to eating/drinking blooded flesh is fast overwhelming even pandemic proportions. If we just observe the absolute consequences of carnivorism being practiced by a low-grad omnivorous species, us, the real-time decline in both human and ecological stability cannot become any more clear and transparent.
But fear, terror if you will, cranks out denialism as an avatar methodology to avoid encounters with absolute truths, at least on planet Earth. IMO, the upper range of human populations on Earth should range between 400-800 million, spaced out to inhabit the margins of what is left of defensible ecosystems. All else must be off-limits except for scientific observations and research/learning. This will happen, as a least-disastrous scenario, whether super-charged Ids among the capitalist horde like it or not.
Just today we have two opposing views – a new pope who decries AI as the vortex to hell, and the geek squad led by Musk and others who predict AI will create nirvana for the few cyborg humans who still have the on-off switch close by. All other humans will just go away, somehow without complaining or rushing the fortresses of digital solitude.
Three readings before action must occur – Ishmael, The Prince, and The Little Prince. Then taste dessert by engaging with Clarke's masterpiece of human folly, The Wind in the Willows.
This is who we are. Overton is a thesis/anti-thesis paradigm. Is their a synthesis? If so, who might be bored enough to read it. If there are 400M humans left, they will be too busy acting like actual animals to bother.